[News] Proprietary Software Era Ending as Free Software Returns?

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Forging the future with open source

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| NetworkWorld nails it with an article describing how proprietary licensing
| encourages companies to spend time protecting their past investments, rather
| than focusing on the future. While the article deals with Microsoft's ongoing
| legal battles with Novell over WordPerfect (Remember that?),
|
| [...]
|
| Red Hat and other open-source companies, in other words, are focused on the
| future, because that's what their model requires in order to earn renewals
| from customers.
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| It’s June 2008, and it’s not a good time to be a Microsoft shareholder or
| employee. The computing industry is changing very, very quickly, creating new
| opportunities and killing once-prosperous markets. In this short article, I
| will outline these changes in relation to free software and Microsoft.
|
| [...]
|
| Windows Mobile has had a very hard life penetrating the mobile market; today,
| in 2008, Windows Mobile is still tottering. The only really usable device
| I’ve seen using it was one made by HTC: Andrea was showing it to me, pointing
| out that without HTC’s proprietary UI extensions (which are very iPhone-ish),
| HTC PDAs would be mobile nightmares. I am holding my breath, waiting for the
| HTC Dream to be released: that’s an Android-based PDA which should make the
| iPhone feel like a text-based terminal. And yes, Android is based on Linux. I
| suspect that once people start noticing Android-based devices (and they will,
| once HTC Dream comes out), the Windows Mobile market will shrink even
| further.
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| Some exciting new software items are on the verge of release. This includes
| an update to the core Linux kernel itself, a new release of Ubuntu, and a
| brand new Firefox. Here’s the low down on each and why the immediate future
| is all good news.
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| There are some surprises beneath the surface of the Latitude line as well.
| One is an optional Linux-based low-power mode called Dell Latitude On, which
| boots in two seconds. It offers more than a day’s worth of battery life for
| basic tasks like web surfing, Exchange e-mail, and viewing e-mail
| attachments, and runs on an ARM-based (ARMH) chip rather than the main Intel
| processor. (HP and Lenovo laptops offer similar Linux modes, but with fewer
| capabilities.)
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